when I first got my hands on this, the first thing I said was: “there are so many short chapters in this.” but after starting the book, I realized that the length of it were all necessary with the way he wanted to tell the story. this book was my first introduction to keigo. I don’t know why I picked this up instead of his more well-known works, but I just feel like this was the right door to get to know him. I’ve read other japanese mystery books, but this is my top read in the genre so far despite the love hate relationship I have with it. I did feel like I might’ve gotten a little lost in translation somewhere in the middle, so there was a slight disappointment when reading it. the storytelling is nice, the main protagonist is okay. but I’m still not sure if the story really needed to take a longer route just to give it a “this is a mystery book” reminder to its readers at every chap. for me that didn’t entirely work well. I realized at that point that this book is more heavy on drama-mystery, than thriller-mystery. it got so slow that I seriously considered dnf-ing this, which I think would be unfortunate. so I fought my way through it and just continue reading. a few chapters before the ending though the story suddenly became really interesting and immersive again. so it’s an up and down, slow burn book. I need to check his other works to tell if this is just his way of writings or it’s translator issues. overall a good japanese mystery book!